Consolidate Apple IDs

I've had an Apple ID that I've used for iTunes purchases for many years. I also have a MobileMe acct that I've used for syncing MobileMe info between devices. So, on my iOS devices I've had a me.com acct for syncing and another apple ID for AppStore/iTunes purchases. This has worked fine. With advent of iCloud it seems that a single Apple ID entered/provided during setup will be used to sync what used to be MobileMe info as well as media and other data, much of it from iTunes/appstore. So, is there a way to consolidate these apple IDs into a single acct? I always found it bizarre that the act of creating a me.com acct (or .Mac) would creat a brand new AppleID which could not be associated with existing IDs that had been previously used to buy from iTunes/AppStore. Anyone know if this is possible now?

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

... I always found it bizarre that the act of creating a me.com acct (or .Mac) would creat a brand new AppleID which could not be associated with existing IDs that had been previously used to buy from iTunes/AppStore. Anyone know if this is possible now?

To the extent that it was bizarre, it was your choice. I have a single AppleID for all of my Apple transactions. When you created your multiple AppleIDs, you could have as well used your existing AppleID.

Nothing's stopping you from using them all at the same time, although if you buy apps with multiple accounts, updates on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch can be a bit of a nuisance (it worked far better before the iOS 4.0 update).

To the extent that it was bizarre, it was your choice. I have a single AppleID for all of my Apple transactions. When you created your multiple AppleIDs, you could have as well used your existing AppleID.

Care to explain how? My original apple ID predates MobileMe. I used an existing email address to create an Apple ID for iTunes. When MobileMe came along and I got my iPhone, I signed up to uses those features. So, how did you sign up for MobileMe for OTA info syncing?

What I mean by that, is that if you do indeed have a single apple ID that you use for all Apple trx, and since Apple automatically assigns a new Apple ID with MobileMe, did you then get a MobileMe acct to allow features like OTA syncing? Does MobileMe syncing work with non-MobileMe AppleIDs? If so, that is news to me.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

Nothing's stopping you from using them all at the same time, although if you buy apps with multiple accounts, updates on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch can be a bit of a nuisance (it worked far better before the iOS 4.0 update).

I currently have four Apple IDs.

So, when icloud comes out and you want/need to use a single Apple ID to handle setup, syncing, etc from cloud to all your devices, which of the 4 will you enter? If cloud can concurrently use multiple AppleIDs on a single device, great no problems. But if it accepts only a single login to push apps, do OTA sync, etc, then you, at best, will have to manually grab items purchased under other accts as you do now. Sort if defeats the purpose of iCloud.

I only have the 2 accts I use any more. One from years ago with a long purchase history I'd like to keep and the other created by apple when I got MobileMe. I use both now. One entered as an email acct for info syncing and one for my iTunes/AppStore purchases. Works fine. But icloud will bring a new workflow process to how all of that works. Hence wanting to consolidate the IDs.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

Care to explain how? My original apple ID predates MobileMe. I used an existing email address to create an Apple ID for iTunes. When MobileMe came along and I got my iPhone, I signed up to uses those features. ...

My AppleID also predates MobileMe. I don't understand your difficulty. I am a MobileMe subscriber. However, I do not use my MobileMe account to synchronize my iPhones and iPad with my computers. I use my preexisting AppleID. You appear to have been laboring under false assumptions.

My AppleID also predates MobileMe. I don't understand your difficulty. I am a MobileMe subscriber. However, I do not use my MobileMe account to synchronize my iPhones and iPad with my computers. I use my preexisting AppleID. You appear to have been laboring under false assumptions.

What account do you use to sync your mobileme info to you iOS devices? I am going to guess you are using your mobileme account and that you use your other Apple ID to sync your apps and songs. If so, then that is exactly what I am doing. Now, when iCloud comes out and one Apple ID is used to sync apps, songs, data, media, calendar, mail, register for FindMyiPhone, which Apple ID will you use?

If you are saying you use your Apple ID, that predates mobileme, for syncing your mail, contacts, calendar and FindMyiPhone, then that would be a neat trick and I would again ask you to explain how that works. If that is not what you are doing, then you are completely misunderstanding the question.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

I've had an Apple ID that I've used for iTunes purchases for many years. I also have a MobileMe acct that I've used for syncing MobileMe info between devices.

Tulkas, I am in exactly the same situation, as are many others.

I signed up for iTunes with an old email address. This became my first AppleID - linked to my credit card details. This account gives access to all my music, apps, developer status and anything which needs money.

Sometime later I got a Mobile Me (.Mac back then) account to do all the syncing and have a nice shiny Appley email account. This new ID is linked to my email, calendar, contacts, bookmarks and so on.

The very first thing I tried to do with my new official MobileMe ID was link it to my paid content. But that just wasn't possible. You can shift your paid content to any email account as long as it's not an Apple email account!

Having two identities isn't so bad. But the upcoming iCloud is going to be a problem. The iCloud service involves both email identity and the iTunes identity.

Apple's created a mess here, which it needs to solve by allowing IDs to be consolidated.

I signed up for iTunes with an old email address. This became my first AppleID - linked to my credit card details. This account gives access to all my music, apps, developer status and anything which needs money.

Sometime later I got a Mobile Me (.Mac back then) account to do all the syncing and have a nice shiny Appley email account. This new ID is linked to my email, calendar, contacts, bookmarks and so on.

The very first thing I tried to do with my new official MobileMe ID was link it to my paid content. But that just wasn't possible. You can shift your paid content to any email account as long as it's not an Apple email account!

Having two identities isn't so bad. But the upcoming iCloud is going to be a problem. The iCloud service involves both email identity and the iTunes identity.

Apple's created a mess here, which it needs to solve by allowing IDs to be consolidated.

C.

Yep.

I just got a reply from Apple. They will not be consolidating Apple IDs (and for those still confused, your MobileMe account is an Apple ID). I am trying to think through the ramifications and what workarounds might exist.
1)Use your old "iTunes" Apple ID to activate your iOS 5 devices and Lion systems for iCloud. Then you will have all of your media, apps, data syncing properly, as desired. But since this will also be used to sync info of the old MobileMe type data (email, calendar, bookmarks, contacts), this Apple ID won't have access to that data. Your only choice then would be to also add your MobileMe account as an email address.

2) Use your MobileMe acct to activate your iOS devices and Lion systems. Then all of your MobileMe type info will sync between systems, but your old iTunes acct would have to be separately added to the AppStore/iTunes.

I guess I either of these would be workable, since it is essentially what many of us do now. But the problem, as you mention, is that iCloud is supposed to consolidate all of these into a single Apple ID that you you enter when setting up the device. Being forced to use two distinct IDs takes away from the automatic setup that iCloud offers, especially to iOS devices. Also, there is the concern of some features not being available. If you choose to use your old "iTunes" Apple ID to set things up initially, will FindMyiPhone work or will it need to use your MobileMe ID? Since iCloud replaces MobileMe, will we have to use the MobileMe/iCloud ID to do the initial setup? If so, then when we add out "iTunes" AppleID to the AppStore/iTunes manually on each device, will it automatically sync apps and songs?

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

Wow apple has thought of everything. This was an email I just sent to Apple,

"I was wondering if I sign up for iTunes Match with my personal MobileMe account, will all my songs on my computer be "scanned/matched" in the cloud, then allowing me to download them automatically from my iPhone or iPod. Even the songs that were purchased by another families iTunes account that are on my computer.

And finally I do not get how iTunes Match will improve the quality of my music. Will it re-download those songs to a higher quality or will it just allow me to download the higher quality songs to my iPod/iPhone. If the later is true, then what will happen when I do a local sync with my computer, will the higher quality ones sync or will nothing happen."

Part one will hopefully sort out the multiply accounts issue. Part Two, I am really stumped on, since it doesn't stream the music, just re-downloads it, will it mean if we want the higher quality music we must listen to it on our iDevices? Also if we want to get the higher quality music, does it mean we need to reset our iDevice and let it download all the higher quality music from the iCloud, if so that is a huge amount of wasted bandwidth and server support on Apple's part.

Welcome to iTunes Store Customer Support. My name is VJ and I am glad to help you.

I understand you'd like to use your MobileMe account name as your iTunes Store account name. I understand your concern and I'll be happy to provide the information that you'll need.

John, it is not possible to merge or convert your iTunes account with or to your MobileMe Account as both are two independent Apple IDs. Each Apple ID must be unique.

If you create a new iTunes Store account with the MobileMe ID as the account's email address, it will be separate from your current iTunes Store account. They will have separate purchase histories, and you won't be able to transfer purchases from one account to another.

I want your iTunes Store experience to be as enjoyable as possible, so if you have any questions, concerns, or need any additional assistance with this matter, please don't hesitate to reply to this email.

Thank you for being an iTunes Store customer. We appreciate your business. Have a good day!

Sincerely,

VJ

Quote:

Hello again,

I wanted to send a quick note to see if you are still experiencing any difficulties with the iTunes Store. Resolving your issue is important to me, so please don't hesitate to reply if you need any further assistance.

Sincerely,

VJ

At which point exactly does 'VJ' think this was resolved?

*all names changed

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

iCloud needs a AppleID to work. So the correct ID is your iTunesID with content purchase history.

At some point The iCloud account will offer an email service.

So what email address will it use? Not the GMail address associated with the iTunes account.
Pretty sure it will be a .me address.

New users will pick an email address. But what about us existing MobileMe users?
I think Apple will allow us to specify existing Mobile Me addresses to use with the iCloud account.

C.

Which is essentially what we are all doing now. I think you are right and this is the solution. The difference is, that for anyone without existing iTunes Accounts and without a MobileMe account, then when they create an iCloud account, it will all work under a single ID. The system seems be designed with Single Sign On in mind, where you enter your Apple ID credentials and everything centers around that ID. For us, we would have to subsequently configure a MobileMe (or a new iCloud ID for those without MobileMe) to gain access to syncing that account too.

And for those have used multiple accts for iTunes/AppStore, it sounds like using one will block using another for 90 days for features like auto-download of media.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

Why on Earth should we expect that we can't have a separate iCloud account for each of those Apple IDs, and that they wouldn't all work together?

The point of iCloud is to do synchronisation. The solution is to have a single definitive version of calendars, contacts, ToDo's and so on on the iCloud server. Changes on one device are then mirrored onto all the others linked by that account.

It makes no sense to have multiple synchronisation sources. I would (err) expect that iOS5 only offers a single iCloud slot.

I don't get it. We currently have multiple Apple IDs and we can use them all at the same time on whatever Mac OS and iOS devices we own.

Why on Earth should we expect that we can't have a separate iCloud account for each of those Apple IDs, and that they wouldn't all work together?

And that has worked well for now. But it defeats the purpose of an all-in-one syncing through iCloud. Further, someone mentioned that Apple replied to their request for info about this by saying that once your configure auto-download through iCloud using one Apple ID, you are locked out of using another Apple ID for that service for 90 days. I think you said you have 4 IDs for iTunes. In that case, if you want to take advantage of all of the iCloud features, you will be limited to one ID every 3 months. So, your music, apps and data will not stay synced for those other IDs during that time. You will have to continue doing what you are doing now, which is to manually download and update info for each account, which again means iCloud isn't really doing anything for you that you aren't getting now.

Think of it this way. When you initially setup a new device, you enter an iCloud Apple ID. In effect, that device is now owned by that ID for iCloud services. You might be able to add other accounts for manual synchronization, but wouldn't it be easier to just consolidate those accounts into a single Apple ID?

When you do that initial setup, if you enter your MobileMe account or a new iCloud ID, then it is not going to sync all (any) of your existing media, apps and info that is tied to your other 'iTunes' accounts. You will have to manually manage them as you do now.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

If you follow what I am proposing, there would only be a single sign-on with a single AppleID.

My iCloud sign-on would be johns@gmail.com - this looks like an email address, but for Apple's purposes, it's just a unique account name and password.

When I send some email from my iCloud account, the email would be addressed from john.smith@me.com

It would be slightly less confusing if the collar matched the cuffs. But as long as I can retail my MobileMe email address, I'll be satisfied.

C.

I think we are on the same page. You are asking for your Apple account with the gmail ID to be associated with your Apple Account that uses your mobileme ID. Both are currently unique and separate Apple IDs.

And yes, that is the problem currently. Two completely separate Apple IDs/accounts that currently service two completely separate functions for transactions with Apple. One is for iTunes and one is for MobileMe (because MobileMe autocreated a new AppleID). And the solution is that since the MobileMe account can provide access to all of the same services that the 'iTunes' account can, then let us consolidate them into a single account, even possibly with two 'usernames' (one gmail and one mobileme).

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

More precisely I am asking for my Apple account with a gmail ID to be able to send and receive email using my defunct MobileMe email address.

C.

I guess the difference between our views is that I don't specifically care so much about sending email under my MobileMe address through my iTunes account, though that might be part of it. I have multiple email addresses anyway, which will all have to be added to my iOS devices.

The key part for me is to have all the other MobileMe info associated with my 'iTunes' account. I believe the quote from Jobs is that the iCloud will be the 'truth' WRT to our synced data, meaning all devices submit to iCloud as the authority for sync status. I want one account that knows the 'truth' for all my apps, music, media, data, contacts, calendars, etc.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

The key part for me is to have all the other MobileMe info associated with my 'iTunes' account. I believe the quote from Jobs is that the iCloud will be the 'truth' WRT to our synced data, meaning all devices submit to iCloud as the authority for sync status. I want one account that knows the 'truth' for all my apps, music, media, data, contacts, calendars, etc.

The iCloud application includes the ability to send email.
The address it uses has to be a @me.com address.

I have one already, so it would be nuts if I had to forgo my bought and paid for @me address only to get another one.

So I am hoping that Apple will let me migrate that address.

I'd therefore hope they'd also let me move other MobileMe data, contacts and calendars etc.
But I am less worried about that data, because it sits on my Mac - and I can shove it up into the iCloud myself.

When adding a new iCloud account, you have the option to setup a new Apple ID or use an existing one. If you choose to use your existing Apple ID and your Apple ID is not a @me.com one, the "Mail and Notes" service will be disabled by default upon initial setup. When you click on the checkbox to enable Mail, a dialog box will appear and asks you to choose an alias to setup a @me.com email account.

Once that's done a second iCloud account will show up as an inactive account with your newly created @me.com email address as primary email and all sync options are disabled in this account.

I've had an Apple ID that I've used for iTunes purchases for many years. I also have a MobileMe acct that I've used for syncing MobileMe info between devices. So, on my iOS devices I've had a me.com acct for syncing and another apple ID for AppStore/iTunes purchases. This has worked fine. With advent of iCloud it seems that a single Apple ID entered/provided during setup will be used to sync what used to be MobileMe info as well as media and other data, much of it from iTunes/appstore. So, is there a way to consolidate these apple IDs into a single acct?

It will continue to work in the same way as it does now. I have installed the iOS 5 beta and can confirm the following:

iCloud is essentially an enhanced MobileMe mail client including ota sync of mail, contacts, calendar, reminders, bookmarks, notes, photo stream, find my iPhone and storage and backup of data. The backup includes your camera roll, accounts, documents and settings. You can turn Back up to iCloud on or off. At the moment you can't use an existing MobileMe account with iCloud as it results in an error saying the account has not been migrated.

Downloading music, apps and books from the Cloud is handled via the Store apps not the iCloud client Therefore you can continue to use separate Apple ID's and it will just work.

I've already run into a similar problem trying to "consolidate" two id's.

The email address that I setup my first apple id and itunes account, I haven't had for some time, it was one provided by an ISP that I am no longer with. In april I had a 2 hour discussion with an apple customer relations person, when until then you used to be able to have your apple id for the itunes store send its emails (receipts, and info) to a different primary email address, this was my mobile me address, it worked fine the entire time I had used mobile me.

This all started after a system update sometime in april, when I got the message about an email conflict, and the mobile me would no longer be accepted. The only solution that the representative could find for me was to set up a gmail address and move my apple id to that email, since he couldn't get around the mobile me already being its own apple id. Which he himself couldn't understand why changing an apple id to a mobile me email address that had never had anything purchased at the itunes store or apple online store.